Local Energy

5th December 2018

A raft of green policy actions across city transport, buildings and industry around the world could yield up to $583bn in economic benefits while delivering significant benefits for climate, air pollution and human health, new global research today suggests. Led by the C40 Cities group, the research sets out ambitious actions to achieve clean transport, buildings and industry in combination with decarbonised power grids. At present cities are responsible for 70 per cent of global CO2 emissions, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates 80 per cent of people in cities are exposed to unsafe air quality. But the research argues implementing bolder greener actions could see an 87 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 49 per cent cut in fine particle pollution (PM2.5), helping to avert as many as 223,000 premature deaths. Moreover, the economic benefits could be as much as $583bn, the research estimates.

A local authority has pledged to beat government targets and reduce local carbon emissions to zero by 2050. South Cambridgeshire District Council has vowed to “show responsible climate leadership” in the design of new homes and energy supplies. The pledge comes days after the Met Office warned of significant temperature rises in coming years. Council leader Bridget Smith said the authority would become “green to the core”. At a full council meeting, the Liberal Democrat-run authority unanimously backed a motion proposing that “South Cambs shows responsible climate leadership by supporting the transition to zero carbon by 2050 in the next local plan”. It will now consider how to “support that commitment” in a joint plan with Cambridge City Council, which has made a similar pledge, a spokesman said. The design of new homes, transport links, waste and recycling services, as well as energy supplies and land-use will all be taken into consideration. Councillor Pippa Heylings, chairwoman of the council’s climate and environment advisory committee, said the changing climate was already “putting extra strains on our services”. “We are facing a climate emergency and have limited time to act,” she said.

Transport for London uses more electricity than anything else in the city. The Underground and Overground rail networks alone consume an astonishing 1.2 terawatt-hours each year, enough to power around 360,000 homes. Then there are buses, trams and an array of other infrastructure. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has pledged to make the capital carbon neutral by 2050. It’s an ambitious target – and to succeed, TfL is going to need to come along for the ride. And work is already underway. Plans are ongoing to electrify London’s bus network and bring more electric vehicles to the city – including the electrification of all black cabs. But no project is bigger than making the Tube carbon neutral. Professor Tim Green, director of the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London says it’s a chance for London to “show some leadership, learn by trying and become a beacon for how you do a low carbon transport system. TfL is attacking the problem from a number of different angles, says Alex Gilbert, senior energy strategy manager at TfL. “There’s a huge amount going on with commercial development and innovation, and we’re very keen to see how start-ups can assist us,” Gilbert adds. Here are five ways the Tube is going green.

New York’s new ‘Solar For All’ programme has awarded contracts to nine community solar projects. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has launched the awards to provide access to no-cost community solar to 10,000 low-income people, who can subscribe to a shared project in their area without having to pay any upfront costs or participation fees. Many of these citizens are unable to deploy solar equipment on their own homes. Energy will still be delivered through their regular electric provider, with the power produced from the community array to be fed directly back to the electric grid.

Clients have included Greenpeace, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, WWF Scotland and the UK Government’s Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

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